


Mechanicsburg

by snowballjane (spycandy)



Category: Cabin Pressure, Girl Genius
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-21
Updated: 2011-06-21
Packaged: 2017-10-20 15:04:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/214042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spycandy/pseuds/snowballjane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three Jägers want to hire an airship</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mechanicsburg

“You want to go to Mechanicsburg at this time of year? That would be...” Carolyn dithered for a moment between 'ridiculous' and 'insane' before settling for “...expensive.”

“Ve haf the money. Hye tink zis vill be enuff,” said the purple one, hefting a lockbox onto the rickety desk in the rickety shack in a corner of England's least salubrious airfield.

Clawed fingers worked the complicated combination locks until they whirred open revealing a small fortune. It would be enough to keep the company's single airship in fuel and her owner out of debtors' prison for at least six months.

“Well, yes,” she said. “I believe MZN will be happy to fly you to Mechanicsburg at your convenience.”

Three pairs of big eyes shone up at her with gratitude. “Ve will be back zis effenink. You vill be ready.”

Now all she had to do was break the news to her pilots.

>>>

It turned out that the destination was the least of her first officer's concerns. “Jägermonsters! Carolyn, no. This is a bad idea. A very bad idea,” said Douglas.

“Why? They seemed like nice young men, er, creatures.”

“Remember that stag party we took to Liverpool last month?”

Everyone in the room shuddered at the memory.

“Well Jägermonsters will make them look like a bunch of nuns. Extremely tidy and placid nuns who have taken a vow of silence. Have you at least got a deposit for cabin furniture damage?”

“Oh come on, everything in there is screwed down,” said Martin.

“They'll just see that as a challenge.”

“That seems rather stereotyping Douglas,” said Carolyn, determined to face down any opposition given the funds at stake. “Perhaps they're rare quiet, bookish Jägers?”

“Oh yes. When the Heterodynes created their loyal, violent super-soldiers, I'm sure they made a few introverted bookworms too just to spice things up.”

“There we go then,” said Arthur. “It'll be fine.”

No one else was reassured. Sighing, Carolyn opted for nice, simple bribery.

“Listen, as it happens they are paying very well indeed, so I can offer each of you a 50 guinea bonus for the trip.”

Martin was now completely and utterly on board and even Douglas wavered at the sum. A little more negotiating and the crew would be on their way.

>>>

“Are hyu sure dis tink vill even fly?” Oggie stared up at the inflated airship Gertie, which was creaking against her tethers in the early evening sunshine. Her balloon was patched in several places, while the hull was in dire need of a paint job.

“It's no Kestle Wulfenbach but dat's de beauty uf it,” said Dimo. “No vun vill look at it tvice. Ve get home nize und sottil vith de schtuff und Mizz Agatha vill be so heppy.”

“Vat if ve run into trubble?”

“Ve kan only hope.” In Dimo's view this whole mission had been distinctly low on trouble of the fun kind. What had been pitched as a dangerous quest in difficult territory had largely been a long sneaky shopping trip so far. But the trouble with trouble in the air was that it didn't offer much in the way of close quarters fighting. And the airship really didn't look like it would last two minutes against _any_ of their enemies.

“Look! Here kome de pilots,” said Maxim, who was slouching against a tether post, facing in the other direction.

Any doubts the Jägers might have harboured about MZN's ability to fly them across Europa's frequently bizarre, confusing and often hostile skies were vanquished in an instant as the trio watched the airship's uniformed captain striding towards them.

“NIZE HAT!!” they chorused.

>>>

Martin had never seen Jägers up close before. From what he had read in the international papers, no one in their right mind wanted to see Jägers close up, as the sight was generally rapidly followed by their own demise.

Of course, it was probably all press exaggeration – more than half of the stories about what went on in places like Mechanicsburg couldn't possibly be true. Not that flying three members of a crack private army with a reputation that struck terror into their masters' enemies wasn't quite scary enough, but they were still people.

So he certainly hadn't expected them to greet him with such manic enthusiasm, grinning with their unnervingly pointy, pointy teeth and staring at his hat with what appeared to be undisguised awe.

“Ah...” he bristled defensively, automatically assuming mockery. “It's part of the uniform. Captain's hat you...”

“Wow!” said the green one, jostling to be the first to shake his hand. “It iz an honour to meet hyu Kaptain Krieff. Hy em Dimo. Dis iz Oggie und Maxim.”

“They are quite sincere, sir,” snickered Douglas in an undertone. “I believe hats are an important status symbol for them. And sir's hat is indeed very _nize_.”

 

>>>

“Light cloud over the North Sea, windspeed eight knots, southerly. Refuelling at Zaventem. I'll take the first leg. Have you ever been to Mechanicsburg before Douglas?”

“Not in a long time. Air England only ran routes as far as Paris. Good lord, what was that?”

'That' was a loud squeal-crash-thump-wallop-argh, followed by Arthur's voice pleading, “Oh no, please. Don't do THAT!!”

“And we're not even untethered yet,” sighed Douglas. “Poor Arthur is going to have quite a flight of it.”

They completed the rest of the pre-take off checks and departed to a soundtrack of thumps, yelps and wails.

“650 feet and holding level. We can't just leave him to deal with it,” said Martin. “He'll have a nervous breakdown if that continues.”

“Rather him than me,” said Douglas. “But unless you packed a supply of strong chloroform, how exactly to you propose to quiet them down?”

“Well, they do seem to respect the hat. Maybe if I went...” Martin hesitated. The noises from the cabin did sound very alarming.

“That's very gallant of you captain. Taking rudder control.”

Much to Douglas's surprise, the noise from the cabin did drop almost immediately as Martin went through the door. There were a few minutes of murmured voices before Martin returned and flopped back into his seat, leaving blissful calm in his wake.

“I am, reluctantly, impressed,” said Douglas, noticing his captain's shaking hands and not offering to hand back the controls for the time being. “You actually managed to intimidate Jägermonsters into behaving themselves? Are you secretly some kind of lost English Heterodyne by-blow?”

“Not exactly,” said Martin. “I promised them that if they behave until we're nearly there, they can visit the flight deck. It usually quietens down our more boisterous visitors.”

“Our more boisterous visitors are usually under ten,” pointed out Douglas. “ Jägermonsters on the flight deck – we're doomed to a fiery death.”

>>>

The English coast was left far behind, the sun was sinking towards the horizon, Gertie was making good headway across the open sea and things were going surprisingly well, all things considered. From the flight deck, they could hear a babble of excited voices, but Arthur's laugh frequently rang out amongst them and there were no further crashes of broken furniture.

Prompted almost as much by curiosity as thirst, Douglas took the opportunity to step into the galley and from there to peek into the cabin. Arthur and two of the Jägers were seated around the cabin's small table, while the other was writhing painfully on the carpeted floor.

“Good evening,” he said adopting his most jovial first officer voice. “Is everything all right back here sirs?”

The one on the floor stilled and opened his eyes. “Arthur haz taught uz to play de gem charades,” he said. “Iz a great gem.”

“Oggie just acted out _Battle of Wolkersdorf_ for us,” said Arthur. “It was really impressive although kind of hard to tell the difference from _Ambush at Kirschnitz_ , which Dimo did first.”

“Not hif hyu was dere!” said Oggie. “Hyu turn now Maxim! Do de _Victory ov Eberstal_!”

“No,” said Arthur patiently, “If you tell him which one to do, we can't guess.”

Douglas retreated, carrying two drinks through to the flight deck.

>>>

They were, at long last, nearly there.

Martin grabbed the new ticker print out and read it aloud. “Skies at Mechanicsburg clear, visibility good, windspeed two knots nor-nor-west. Exp: low. Exp? What's exp?”

“Explosions forecast. Low is good.”

“Oh. Right.” On the ground below, Martin spotted a small puff of white burst from one of the city's outlying villages. He swallowed. “Explosions.”

“I believe you need to make good on your promise to our passengers before we arrive,” said Douglas.

“Oh, yes. Right.” He pulled the speaking horn towards him, and called into it. “Arthur, could you bring our guests for their VIP visit.”

It was less than a second before the trio burst into the small space, with excited cries of, “Vat does dis do?” “Is dis an ejector sit?” “Kan ve go faster?” and “Schould we dodge dat missile?”

“WHAT?!!”

Even with the extra time afforded by sharp Jäger eyes, Gertie didn't have the manoeuvrability to dodge the shiny metal object tearing towards them. It ripped past the cockpit window and buried itself in the underside of the great balloon above them. Immediately air began to hiss from the ragged hole it left behind.

“Everyone hold on tight,” shouted Martin. “Emergency landing coming up.”

“Damn,” said Douglas, who was scouring the ground below for a nice place to crash. “We're right above the town now. We need to stay airborne until we clear these houses. Martin, you chase the bubble, I'm turning east.”

“Are we going to die?” whimpered Arthur.

“Possibly,” said Martin as he grabbed the elevator wheel and focused hard on the inclinometers. “But we should avoid taking townsfolk with us.”

“Vait!,” shouted Oggie. “De kestle kan katch. Fly et ze kestle.””

That sounded highly unlikely, but they were now so low they were snagging weathervanes on the tops of tall towers, so it wasn't like there was much choice anyway. They weren't going to make it to open ground. The town's castle loomed up in front of them. Impact was going to be horrible.

“Right Maxim, hyu take der brave kaptain. Oggie, grab our frend Arthur and I haf the other one. Ready? Jump!”

>>>

They stood on the bridge across the castle moat, staring up at the wrecked and deflated airship, which was held in some kind of a mesh of lightning that had burst from the towers. The three Jägers were high-fiving each other and hugging in delight at their latest brush with death.

“Mum's going to have a fit,” said Arthur.

Douglas just stared.

Martin sniffled as a tear ran down his cheek.

The small sound attracted Maxim's attention. “Oh no!” he said, throwing his arms around the pilot in a bone-crushing, but apparently well-meant hug. “Iz hokay. Hye saw where it fell.” He let go and ran off.

The castle doors creaked open impressively and two finely and extravagantly dressed young people came running out. Ah, they probably weren't going to be too pleased at having their castle crashed into.

“Jägers, report!” called out the woman

“Ve hav de schtoff,” said Dimo. “It's in de airship. Vich needs fixink.”

Both humans looked rather excited at that prospect.

The woman turned to MZN's shaken crew. “Welcome to Mechanicsburg,” she said. “If you would like to rest a while, Gil and I will fix your ship up better than ever.”

If an unspoken 'mwahaha' hung in the air following the words 'better than ever' both pilots still thought better of quibbling with an offer of free repairs.

As they were about to head into the castle, Maxim came running up with Martin's captain's hat clutched in his claws. It was dirty and dented with its brim half hanging off, but the Jäger presented it with pride.

“Hye iz sorry, hyu hat is broken, kaptain. But hye kno a good hat man who vill make dat hat better'n effa.”

Martin suspected that “better” would mean even more gold braid than the hat already had, which would no doubt bring Douglas hours of mirth. But being offered an even better hat by a Jäger? That was an honour he wasn't going to refuse.

The End


End file.
